This is my first DK 4 diary...and another purely personal one...
Myself and my roomate two people with disabilities have been trying to keep working, and then trying to keep each other afloat for 14 years. For fourteen years, she's been my caregiver while she also holds down a full time job. I held down a full time job before I knew her, and for seven years after we decided to share expenses here in Denver.
Six months ago, she was making good money in a call center. Sedentary work is the only work she could do due to severe asthma, nerve damage in one leg and a back injury, but she was a real star at that job. Commendations, solid work, etc. Her impairments did make her use a lot of FMLA. And...wait for it...she was a high utilizer of the company's health insurance.
I've been back on disability housebound since early 2009. More below the fold
She had a life threatening illnesss one year ago, (a 1k deductible and recovered from that and went back to work....but it got harder. New conditions, diabetic neuropathy and losing all the padding in her feet (so when she walks it's bone chafing against the ground...hugely painful....) so that she was clenching her teeth and crying when she had to stand to go to the fax machine, etc.... stacked on top of the old, so she had to leave that job, and file for her employer's long term disability. (a separate company from the employer itself.) The cobra rate for her? 565 a month.
They denied her first attempt, she appealed but ran out of funds. She lost her cobra. With all these preexisting conditions. Her first appeal of the Long Term Disability was recently denied. She has an attorney, but that won't put living money in the bank...
"You have issues but you can still do a sedentary job," they said
Well it was a bloody sedentary job she left! But WTF ever.
We can't afford this apartment any longer. Yep it was too expensive (500 a month each), but we were both working full time in July 2008. It was big, and safe, and vermin free and had two elevators. We were settling in.
But, after the loss of funds rent literally wasn't there for the rest of the lease. My family back east was keeping it afloat until the lease ends on april 4. As of that date, my family back east can take me in back home and they have agreed to do so. I'm ashamed. I've cost them money and I have to slink back home like a loser.
But at least I have a place to go.
My roomate, (and by extension, our dog, LexitheSchnauzer, will be homeless)
After 14 years of hard hard work...at two jobs. This is what she gets. The 1k deductible and 20% copay (moderate for some, impossible for her) is part of what drove her to begin the process to file bankruptcy. (Has not filed yet)
I can't help but think I've done this to her.
But not really.
The two insurances, health and disability, weren't really insurances at all.
As we've seen before, they're there until you need them, and then all of a sudden they can't have enough profit and deny, deny deny...
Five preexisting conditions. Two new ones that put her over the edge. No insurance. No funds. No home. all down from almost self sufficiency in six months.
The downturn has caused the same to happen to many.
And our public servants want to make more of these situations, if Rand Paul or Scott Walker are any indication
Aint America wonderful?
Any Denver Kossacks want a wonderful feisty miniature schnauzer?Updated by imfunnytoo at Wed Mar 9, 2011, 11:41:23 AM
Update: 3/9/2011 9:15 am
It looks like the roommate’s brother living near the coast of South Carolina, may take her and LexiTheSchnauzer in temporarily. He’s a decent guy.
She may be volunteering for a little bit each week at the local center for independent living…have to see what the doctors say…I’ve found that, the local hospital that has a program for indigent inpatient care…and am tracking down a local free clinic. She’s found the local parish and library…(for internet usage, naturally…